2010-08-17

Know Your Prospects

The signing deadline for our 2010 Amateur Draft Picks has come and gone. We ended up getting 33 of 56 picks - 14 of 16 from the top 10 rounds - to ink a deal. In honor of this, we here at 1BlueJaysWay have decided to put together a no BS list of prospects at every position for your enjoyment and reference.

What will separate this list from the many others out there, is the fact that we have actually seen most of these players first hand. Some of them for a prolonged period of time.

Let's get you warmed up with some insight from our boy Jesse:

Please Note:

For the purposes of this list, we
have defined prospect as a player who is 25 years of age or under and
has yet to appear in the Major Leagues. As such you will not find any
of the following names on our lists:

Plus Arm. Making huge strides as a hitter. Excellent work ethic and make-up.

Gets a pass on the age and MLB experience requirements due to his transition from pitcher to outfielder. Only in his second season as a full time hitter. Will be a minor league free agent at the end of this season.

1 out of every 4 throws is sensational, strong and accurate. Gaining plate discipline. Great body type (same body as Carl Crawford) but has the swing of a much smaller player, depriving him of all of his power.

With respect to pitching, we found it to be a hugely difficult category to rate because the best Major League
relievers are Minor League starters a majority of the time. We think that
Carreno and Perez are probably going to become relievers, and so might
Jenkins.

Anybody
with visions of playing shortstop in the Majors Leagues in the next 5 years not named Adeiny Hechavarria, will not be doing so in a Blue Jay uniform.

There are some positions - 1B, 2B, 3B - in the system where the Blue
Jays are thin.

There are some positions - Pitching, C, OF - in the system where the Blue Jays are strong.

The 2007 and 2008 drafts both look disastrous right now.

It’s weird…..we’ll call it the “Adeiny
Hechavarria” theory because he’s playing so much better in Double-A
than High-A. From what we’ve heard, High-A is a miserable place to
be, because of no crowd, temperature, and the coaching staff. (Hitting
coach Justin Mashore is a negative personality.) There are guys with poor
numbers there who we're nearly certain are going to put up terrific numbers
once they get to Double-A, even though it’s a much tougher level for so
many other reasons.

25 comments:

500,Drabek for sure. He will be given a chance to make the rotation next year and his arm stamina will be built up to where it needs to be.After that, it's really based on what the MLB team requires.Obviously guys like Litsch, Rzep and Mills - if they aren't traded in the offseason - will be in line for some starts as well.Keep an eye on Jo-Jo. I don't know if he has any option years left.Thanks for your comments

Wait, can I ask why Jenkins would become a reliever? Is it due to starting pitching depth by the time he is ready or you just don't see him as a starter because I thought he was a big horse built to be a starter and inning eater.

Interesting note on High A. If that really is the case, shouldn't he be canned by now?

The reasoning on Jenkins is that he needs to develop a solid change-up to go along with his fastball/slider development. If he can’t do that, he stays a two-pitch pitcher – and a two-pitch pitcher is a reliever in the big leagues, not a starter.

I think he has it in him to develop that 3rd pitch. It's in works right now and he's in his 1st year in the minors. It's hard to predict he won't be able to develop that 3rd pitch and become a reliever.

I'd be very disappointed if he became a reliever. It would be quite a waste of that 1st pick.

I'm very excited about the outfield. assuming they reach their potential, a Snider-Gose-Marisnick outfield would look pretty sick.

Unfortunately, AA still has tons of work to do really find a future 1B and 3B.

2007 draft looks disastrous? Three years later and Cecil, Mills, Rzepczynski, and Arencibia have already had time with the major league club. Farina, Magnuson, McDade, Emaus, and Mastroianni all could still make it to the bigs in some role.

The high school kids haven't done well, but it's such a striking (and uniform) gap between the college kids and the high school kids that I think it might be an organizational development problem.

You couldn't be more wrong about about the 2007 draft, if anyhing it's the most succesfull draft in years. How often can you say a team gets four major league players only 3 years after they were drafted, not too damn often, in fact I can't think of another draft year that has yielded a better return.

With respect to the 2007 draft here are the facts:We had 2 first round picksWe had 3 comp picksWe had 2 second round picksOf those selections, 2 guys have played in the Majors, if you consider the 2 weeks Arencibia just got playing. I'm not shitting on Cecil. But he may be a number 3 starter at best. Sure we struck gold with Emaus in the 11th round and Mastroianni in the 16th looks like a steal.Mills and Rzep look a whole lot like 5th starters to me. How hard are those guys to find in the winter?

Simply put: we have 1 more year before players from this draft who were taken at age 19 or above must be added to the 40 man roster or risk being exposed and selected in the Rule V draft. Players who were 18 have an additional year.

Only Rzep, Cecil and Mills are currently on there.

Which means Emaus, Mastro, Farina, Magnuson and Arencibia have next year to do it. Do any of those guys look like impact players right now in the Majors? Answer that question with your head not your heart.

Ahrens, Jackson, Tolisano, Eiland and McDade have an extra year to prove themselves. None of them have made it past High A ball yet. Still time sure but they will be competing with the 2008 draft year guys for spots at that point.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the draft of 2007 was classic Ricciardi. He drafted a bunch of guys who might someday be average big league players. And he did it with 5 of the first 56 picks in the draft. That's more than AA had this year to work with.

I think you're selling the 2007 draft short. Yes, we could have had a couple more "hits" but when you end up with two or three solid major-leaguers from a draft, it has to be considered successful. The main reasons why I think it wasn't a bust are:

- Arencibia has potentially huge value as a young, controllable major-league catcher who can catch, has above-average power, and good makeup

- Cecil's ceiling may be that of a #3, but that's pretty good in the AL East. His minor-league numbers are strong and He's allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in eight of his last nine starts. In his second MLB season (and first full season), he's on pace for 175 innings, has a 1.24 WHIP, a 3.90 ERA, and a better than 2:1 K:BB ratio. That's pretty good.

- Magnuson is having an excellent year and just made the Futures Game. He has a 2.37 ERA, 6.22:1 K:BB ratio, and has allowed 1 HR in 64.2 innings. Maybe the next Scott Downs?

- I agree that Mills and Rzep aren't all that exciting as prospects, but scouts seem to like Rzep despite his lack of big stuff. He might be able to hang around as a useful lefty starter or reliever

- Based on his big FB and minor league stats, Farina looks like an intriguing prospect

I'm not sold on the other prospects (although maybe Emaus could become an Eckstein type of player in the majors), but that's a pretty good haul IMO, even with the extra picks. Lots of drafts produce basically nil, or maybe one or two average major-leaguers, for the drafting team. Arencibia, Cecil and Magnuson alone would make this a successful draft for me.

Thanks for the excellent run down. How far do you think we'll move up in the next organizational ratings? My guess is we're top 10 which is a testament to AA's commitment to increasing the scouting depth and (unlike JP) to listening to them. Keep your eye on Art Charles who we picked in the 20th round. I've been told by someone who saw him last week that he looks a lot like Willie McCovey--awesome power, good speed and a decent glove.

What do you think of the Jays having JP Arencibia move to first or third?

You don't want a catcher batting 3rd or 4th in the lineup, as they only play 120 or so games a year and have shorter careers. These moves have been made a lot in baseball, like what happened with Delgado. It also can help solve the problem of a lack of corner infielders for the future, and the Jays could have Lind at first, and JP at 3rd moving forward.

Then, the catcher of the future could be Travis D'Arnaud. He is solid defensively, and isn't the great bat like JP, but still solid.

The reason you don't want to move Arencibia to the corners is that if his bat develops at a premium position up the middle (i.e. the most important defensive positions) then he becomes a special player, but that same bat developing at 1B or 3B pushes him to league average (or worse) offensively.

Even a guy like Hanley starts to look a little average if he's playing LF or DH. This is the same philosophy that lead to the Antony Gose move, and much of the recent drafting strategy demonstrated by the team: lots of pitchers, catchers, shortstops and speedy outfielders, with the assumption that when the big club is ready to starting buying for a run, you'd much rather pay for the corners than for much more expensive positions up the middle.

Recently, the market for premium thirdbasemen at the major league level has been arguably thin, but I think an argument can be made that elite offensive talent at catcher is a)more difficult to find, and b)more expensive when you find it.

@Anon,We are just going to have to agree to disagree. With that many high picks in 2007, I thought we would have more to show for it. Hence the disappointment.

@Michsel,Thanks for the heads up on Charles. Interestingly, he was drafted as a pitcher.As for the org. rankings, it's tough to say right now. We did add a lot in a short period of time but is it enough to get into the top 10? I don't know.

@Argos,I think the convo about J.P. moving positions is a little pre mature. He has to stick in the bigs for a while AND be pushed by the next guy in line before we can discuss a position move. For now he is a catcher, in 10 or so years we can talk about 1B.

@Fisted,Well said bro. Not to much I can add to that. Thanks for your thoughts.

@Jonny,File this one under the I can't believe I bothered to do this category but I just went through every Cecil start this year. All 21 of them. I didn't bother to look at the results so much as who he was pitching against. Here goes:

Aside from his starts against Lester, Garza, Santana, Peavy and maybe Burnett he hasn't had the toughest competition in terms of match ups. For the record he is 4-3 against those guys.

Point being: when he is matched up against number 3/4/5 guys he dominates. When he is matched up against an ace or a number 2 he is just about a .500 pitcher. WAR be damned, Cecil has had favorable match ups all season and this is why I think he is a great number 4 guy and could be a number 3 someday.

I don't mean to be confrontational, but your argument just isn't rational.

a) Measuring a pitcher by the pitchers he opposes rather the offences he pitches against?b) Drawing conclusions based on 7 starts?c) Using Won-Loss record as the measure of how a pitcher did in 7 games?

None of the above is a reasonable way to measure a pitcher, and it doesn't even support your point anyhow! 4-3 is not "just about a .500 pitcher"! It's a .571 pitcher. A team with nothing but .571 pitchers wins 93 games!

@JonnyI love the fact that we disagree and I don't take it personal at all bro!

My point is this: Cecil is fine right where he is in the rotation. When he matches up against true top of the rotation guys, his chances of success are less. Sure he has a very small sample size to draw from but by that rational doesn't it also diminish his precious WAR? Stats can be manipulated to support any argument.

An example of what I'm laying down:Marcum, in my eyes not a true ace, when matched up against one in Clay Buchholz can't beat him even while posting virtually the same numbers as his season averages. What is different about those starts? He is squaring off against a superior pitcher, that's what.

When discussing how a rotation is put together I believe it is very important to consider what level of competition your projected starters will be facing in each slot. Brett Cecil can beat almost every number 4 guy out there. Start moving him up the food chain and I am not so sure.....

So you're telling me that when Brandon Morrow faces off against the Yankees tonight, we expect him to pitch well because the opposing pitcher is rookie Ivan Nova... but if it was CC Sabathia pitching for the Yankees we would expect Morrow to pitch less well?

I am baffled. I really would have thought the relevant factor was that the Yankees have the best offence in the league.

By the way, in those starts against "aces and number 2s" - Lester, Garza, Santana, Peavy and Burnett, as you stipulated - Cecil has a 3.33 ERA (8 games, 51-1/3 IP). Which is to say he's been better in those games than his overall season numbers.

@Jonny,Silly me thinking this game was about winning and losing. You see I love baseball stats. They are almost always right. Guys like Klaw and Wilner made a fucking career out of them. But what they fail to tell you is the why. It's not about pitching "less well" it's about winning the fucking baseball game.

To answer your question: I expect us to win tonight because Morrow will pitch better than a rookie and if CC was pitching than I would not expect us to win. If Morrow went out there knowing that he cannot give up more than a run or two because CC was on the hill than he will be forced to change his approach.

Your second point actually strengthens my argument: he has pitched better, because he knows he has to, and still has a worse record to show for it.

We are going around in circles here man. I appreciate your point of view but I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say.

The point is, you don't judge a pitcher by the numbers of wins/losses he has. You judge the pitcher by looking at his stats like ERA, FIP, K/9, H/9, BB/9. Winning a baseball game is a team game and just because a pitcher can't get tagged with a win doesn't make him a worse pitcher.

If anyone is matched up against aces, obviously your chances are going to be less, even if you dominate. You can pitch an amazing game yet thanks to your offense, you can't get a win. Roy Oswalt this year had a horrible win/loss record yet he puts numbers of a true ace. Does that make him less of a pitcher? A win can also depend on how good your team is, which is why it's a team win.

Cecil is probably a #3 starter right now but does have the potential to be a #2 starter.

I also don't understand why people are calling Zep #5 starter. Last year, he pitched just as good, if not better than Cecil but thanks to his injury, he's been off this year and even then, he is still holding his own. He is still a young pitcher and has inconsistency issues but I'd say Zep has the potential to be a #3-4 starter. He's got good stuff and gets groundball outs. If he can improve his command and have consistent delivery, then he could very well become a solid pitcher.